And everybody home for tea
by Be3
Summary: kid!fic, in which there are various bodies of water, more than a handful of Johns saved from a horrible death, a long-suffering Mycroft... Now a University AU. A bird's leg is splintered, a boa is burned, and hygiene habits of females are discussed.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: **For the** Amnesty prompt 2 at watson's woes: words from the table 1: STRANDED, BREATHE, GALLANT, CRAWL, SUSPICIOUS.  
Based on personal experience (only we had to pass through a herd of cattle, to boot). Unbetaed. For KCS, whose "Argument and Disputation" made me try my hand in writing fics in English; and for my husband, who actually drove the bike.

In retrospect, Mycroft thought, _this_ was what you got for placing a philosophical question in front of his ever practical-minded brother.

It started with Sherlock succumbing to the _is-the-glass-half-something_ virus. Mycroft, who by then had had enough of the joke from his own peers, snapped without much foresight: _Life isn't a glass_. _Life is... is... a swimming pool from that calculus problem._

Now, Sherlock had had no clear understanding of what 'calculus' meant, beyond it making Mycroft VERY BUSY every Tuesday evening, but he never let such things deter him.

'How so?'

_Argh._

'There is a pool,' Mycroft began glumly. He dimly suspected this was going to turn out into a piece of Oriental wisdom - too Oriental even for his own liking. 'Water goes in it through one pipe and out through another.'

'But that doesn't make sense!' Sherlock rallied quickly. 'Why would people want to use both in the same time?'

Why, indeed? He sighed and went on. 'Only it goes out faster than in.'

'So you can't have any at all?' Sherlock surmised.

'Oh, really?'

He grinned evilly and left the tike to figure it out.

He was all of three steps away when Sherlock caught up to him in two jumps, stumbled and nearly dislocated his hand to right himself.

'MIKE! You can just stuff something into the second pipe!'

'And when you drown, I'll know whom to blame.' _Myself_. 'It can't be plugged, _mon Sher_.'

And Sherlock scowled, and sulked, and looked up calculus (though he didn't read far enough to get the hint.) Mycroft even thought the matter to have blown over.

…However, as he glanced down into a swinging bucket teeming with life, he admitted to being wrong. And thirsty. And tired.

He only hoped this was not Sherlock discovering sarcasm.

Yet the kid was not the only one to blame; he went along for the insanity willingly enough. His pride was soothed with a quote from Mommy's speech – the one about nurturing kindness in his brother's young, awfully receptive mind...

He pursed his lips for just a moment, then gulped down some air. Pride could go hang. Cycling was a bla...

'Come on!' Sherlock piped behind him. 'Can't be late for tea.'

'I'm doing my best,' the 'engine' grumbled. The little pest was barely six; they'd let him off the hook. He, Mycroft, was going to explain to Mommy why their Sunday suits were torn and scratched and rimmed with caked grime and where all the algae came from...

'Duckweed!' Sherlock enthused. 'I'll call myself Captain Fry of the 'Hangman', fear ye scoundrels! You know, 'Hangman' for my ship. Or just 'Fry' for short, what do you think, Mike?'

He almost lost his balance. As it is, he lost a hefty dollop of the precious liquid from the bucket hanging on the handle bar.

Of course, Sherlock then had to leap down and inspect the pool for victims. There were none. The only victim was blowing his nose on a sleeve – it could pass for frogspawn, anyway.

In short, Sherlock had learned of a cutoff meander left by the retreating river, that was to dry up in the nearest future. (As it did every year.) Imminent action was required to move the few stranded carp babies, choking in the mud, to the stream proper, a map was - well, the map was probably borrowed without a permission, but Mycroft was by now beyond such pettiness, - and the gallant Holmes Team rode out to save the day.

The very hot and windless day.

He mopped his brow before remembering the _frogspawn_.

'Molly says the fish have a language,' Sherlock prattled on, having satisfied himself as to the fish's safety.

Molly Hooper was a dear little girl who followed in Alice-in-the-Wonderland's footsteps. What Mycroft found truly alarming was the amount of patience Sherlock invested in shredding her illusions to pieces. She did not seem to mind; rather, she brought new heaps of rubbish ideas and waited in fascinated silence for him to reinstate the order of the universe.

'And what do her guppies tell her?' he panted heavily.

From behind came a series of smacking noises.

_'Sherlock_!'

Sherlock cackled. 'It means 'kiss-kiss-kiss'.'

'That's one advice she'll never need,' Mycroft grumbled, and spat out a dandelion seed.

'I can hear you thinking,' Sherlock warned.

'Well?' It was no good to point out that such a thing was physically impossible; he would only get a ''Cause you're such a slowbelly!' and another cackle, at which the kid was uncannily good.

'You're thinking 'left or right?''

'_You_'ve got the map.'

'Oh.' One hand peeled off his flank. 'Right.' Some rustling then, the map being stuffed into a pocket. The hand returned with an unflattering _thwack_.

He turned right. If the brat could hear him thinking, the brat knew what he would get for a prank at this stage.

'I named them Johns.'

Mycroft berated himself silently. Not a month ago, when Sherlock had measles, he read aloud the Treasure Island, with voices and everything. Then began The Age of Piracy... frankly, not how he'd envisioned his too-short summer break.

'Not 'Jims'?' he asked without much hope. However did Sherlock ascertain that there were no females?.. Did he even care?..

'Nope,' Sherlock said in that voice which tells one _entirely too much_.

Wait a minute...

'Hang on! Are you planning capture-recapture studies?' Mycroft groaned. Would have groaned, had he breath to spare.

'Next year, yes.'

Oh, so that was why he was on good behaviour the whole morning. Figures.

'You'll have to mark them. They will be quite grown up. Or do you think you'll say John-John-John, and they will swim to you just like that?' He snapped his fingers, and the bike wobbled.

'Hey!' Sherlock squirmed. 'No, I'll _talk their language._'

'Eww.'

'I think we've got one tadpole there. Want him?' Sherlock offered, patting his bulk comfortingly.

They crawled on. The river had never been so far away. Mycroft felt as if he were melting; a headache had taken hold of his right temple and promised to stay...

'So basically, I'm doing all this kind of crazy stuff - trespassing upon private property, robbing someone of a natural fertilizer, - for the sake of a handful of Johns?'

Sherlock hugged him tighter.

'Relax, you're doing fine.' A beat. 'And that's more than a handful.'

Mycroft threw a glance at the water, where tiny mouths were opening and closing, packed tight like choir-boys. In the next instant, the sun's reflected glare made him look away. They'd better hurry, or some of the little guys would turn belly-up and Sherlock would whine for ages.

'I expect we're doing this for the greater good, too,' he said, just to feel better.

'Sure! My greater good's pretty great.'

And that was so like his brother that he didn't bother with a reply.

The road here allowed some slack: no traffic worth mentioning. There was a kindle of primary school pupils in the ditch, with their hoarse-voiced chaperon shepherding them back into the bus. The well and truly stuck bus which obviously had had a flat. The driver was chewing on a sandwich with the air of someone watching the execution of a state traitor, and Mycroft immediately felt that sandwiches were the world's best food.

He started to speed up, to sweat the indignation out. Also, to escape before Sherlock could have another brilliant idea.

'...mock! Anderson! Let it go!' shouted the aggravated teacher. Most of the children had already collected in the short shadow of the bus – spectators, not worthy of attention. Two, however, were still quarrelling over something they found under a bush – and here the bike swerved a bit, its load exactly one Sherlock lighter.

Mycroft, whose attitude towards physical exertion amounted to 'my loss, entropy's gain,' braked, stilled the bucket and settled to wait.

'He killed it!'

'I did not!'

'Did, too!'

'Lemme see!' Sherlock yelled, flying over the overgrown meadow as if it were a soccer field.

The boys stuck together against the intruder, who did not spare them so much as a glance, but dived straight into the grass. They looked at each other and shrugged uncertainly, then turned to their classmates, squinting against the sun.

'It smells yucky!' reported the larger boy.

The watchers screeched. The lady whose responsibility was, Mycroft supposed, to return the kids in working order, finally made them go inside and marched over to the crime scene.

Mycroft missed what happened next, because right then he was approached by the driver, a Mr. A. Powers by his nametag, with a ridiculous request of bringing help.

'We are,' he explained grandly, and showed the man the listless Johns who were producing a gentle bubbling sound, like a great bowl of fizz.

Three minutes later they shook on an agreement. Mr. Holmes will see to his business, and then come back and lend his bike to Mr. Powers, who will in turn look after the other Mr. Holmes and give them a lift when the tyre arrives.

Also, Mr. Powers will fuel Mr. Holmes with half a sandwich.

(The poor man was a bit unsettled by a bout of maniacal laughter that met his well-intended offer just before it was accepted with alacrity.)

'Not much trouble, your brother?' asked the driver, throwing some crumbles to the offended fish. Mycroft sent him a suspicious glower but could see no condescension.

At fifteen, he would have laughed it off.

At twenty he would have all answers for every question except, perhaps, for the one Mr. Powers would have asked.

He was only thirteen.

He looked into the open, kind face of a stranger who – _thought_ – to ask, and took a page out of Sherlock's own book, one writ last week, when the librarian's lecture was rolling over his head, unheeded, and Holmes Junior, sullenly re-wrapping _The Railway Children_ and _The Three Musketeers_ back into their proper jackets, mumbled a conciliatory:

'If the shoe fits...'

A/N: if the outlet pipe is almost at the top, you will, gradually, have a pool that is very nearly full. It _can _be rewritten as a calculus problem instead of simple arithmetic.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: University AU, no crime-solving. Mentions of blood and gore (zoological humour), not graphic.

Years passed. God knows how they do it, but there you are. They did.

Mycroft grew into a skillful lab tech with ambitions. He was writing a Ph. D. on an enzyme which could, in theory, help to locally control blood clotting - a mighty useful thing in case of an internal haemorrage. He was certain he could finish it early, if only he did not have Sherlock to keep in line. Why did the kid have to enter the same university? And why did he keep hopping from one Department to another?..

He sighed, looking on the lamp's reflection stamped across the cloudbank in the window.

'Hi!' Sherlock burst into the room. Thank God it wasn't the actual lab. Last time Mycroft spilled dye on his boots.

He leveled an Olympic glare on his Little Bro. It was too early in the morning for lectures to be over. (He would hear about this... Who was Sherlock's current supervisor?)

The other ignored the scrutiny and made a beeline for the coffee machine.

'You know,' Mycroft remarked, 'when normal people come back from a night of carousing around the city; their movements spastic and poorly coordinated; twigs sticking out of their hair (Sherlock felt his head, removed a leaf and dropped it into the bin); their clothes stinking of mould - I would suspect a crazy personal life. Maybe even drugs.'

'Boring.' Sherlock was shaking out the last grains of sugar from Mycroft's special stash. 'Recorded bats. I might have caught a cold.'

'You are not weaseling out of another match,' Mycroft warned. He was in charge of his brother's socialization. They had shaken hands on it.

'Come on!' Sherlock whined. Probably to the machine.

'Basketball is good for you.'

'John said my tonsils look awful. Here. I'd like a second opinion.'

That John again! Sherlock introduced him like 'the only student in campus worth knowing'. For normal, kinky drug addicts it was a 'run for your life!' billboard. For promising biochemists it was more of a 'your life on the run' one.

John Watson was almost as old as Mycroft himself. He did not stick out in a Sunday crowd. He could do small talk. You would never think he fought poachers, was wounded defending a doe and consulted vets on the tricks of treating sick lizards.

Watson wasn't a vegan or a tree-hugger by a long shot; he was a naturalist with a ton of experience, though he only went into formal training this year. No doubt, Sherlock's dabbling in zoology was the man's influence.

(They did suit each other well. Watson was 'married to his work', though he could go out with a girl now and again. Usually it resulted in a lasting friendship and another budding botanist; Mycroft's own neighbour, Anthea of the Electrophoresis, recently took to bringing colourful mags of in-door orchids. Soon she would want to talk about them.

And then, when the spring comes, she might elope into the country for a weekend, taking pictures of the native species. Heavens, she might leave their cozy lab altogether -

No. Anthea was a sensible woman. And her 'grams were dead accurate.)

Sherlock, with his Logic, boundless energy and encyclopaedic memory, was learning to observe the world. It was the only reason why he bothered with education - to know what to look for, to name the pieces of the mosaic of Life. Books were never enough; he craved the visceral pleasure of being at home in the wild, a Man under the Stars, just as he had craved to be wild at home. He had a frightening ability, not fully developed yet, to read the history of landscape from its fixtures and variables. Mycroft could see how John Watson's quiet expertise - less generalized abstraction, more tacit knowledge and a knack of passing it on - would captivate his brother's burning thirst.

The two were as unlike as he could imagine good friends be, and yet within an afternoon of meeting each other they moved in to the same room, 221B.

Sherlock's former co-habitants hadn't lasted for long. It was, Mycroft acceded, a relief to finally have a living soul there who could more-or-less handle his brother, although the relief was mitigated by the difficulty of handling the handler.

'Don't think the word used to describe nannies taking care of very small children,' Sherlock warned from the windowsill.

'In connection with your friend? Never,' Mycroft smirked. The other peered at him suspiciously.

'...after all, he is hardly a saint.'

He was prepared for a vehement outburst, but Sherlock only shrugged. Nights out made him at peace with the world; strange, exotic things which did not abide daylight drew him like flame draws a moth. Sometimes after his return Mycroft caught a wistful expression on his face, and it always rang a warning in his mind, though what he was afraid of, he could not tell.

Now, though, his brother was drawing on the tray a string of tiny Batmans dancing syrtaki, which meant he was reasonably far from morbid.

(Hearsay (which Mycroft tried, and could not, quell) maintained he and John seized every chance to take the edge off of their insatiable carnal appetites like the good little demons that they were, with weird music and rush lights and all. Sherlock, who, to his credit, had never aspired to modesty, grinned and wiggled his eyebrows if asked anything along the lines. Mycroft kept a judicious silence, mostly because he liked not having to explain to another broken-hearted girl why Mr. Sherlock Holmes could not return her feelings.)

'Come today to our place. We're planning a fundraising event for the Durrell's Trust.'

'I shall,' he promised grimly.

'Well..' Sherlock fished out a felt-tipped pen added a few bold strokes to his masterpiece where his pencil - so sharp it was believed to be able to draw blood, and did on at least one occasion, when he had to determine the gender of a falcon - failed to express the liveliness bubbling inside the artist. 'There. Noon, sharp. Bring ideas.'

And so it happened that Mycroft re-planned his day and came to 221B ten minutes before the appointed time, in a vain attempt to have a private chat with Watson. Exams were approaching, after all. They could not keep gallivanting through sewers night in and night out.

He didn't hear raised voices when he approached the door. It was a good sign; likely, there would be another rational person inside to help him fight the fire of Sherlock's brainstorming.

The door had to be lifted and moved aside whenever someone had to go in or out. Exactly what, why and how Sherlock had and was doing to it nobody could tell; yet it refused to stay hinged. (Sherlock called it The Veil.) Fortunately, the inhabitants' reputation was enough to scare away intruders and thieves.

After some grunting, Mycroft put the obstacle literally behind him. Inside, between the usual islands of equipment, books, journals and terraria, Sherlock and his roommate were entertaining an unexpected (by Mycroft) guest, Molly Hooper.

She hadn't changed much during the years; still pale, still earnest, still craving his brother's attention. As he grew up, Molly had to adjust to Sherlock's rapid change of fields of interest; at last he settled on biology, and she manly threw herself into studying. She could go far if she ever developed any ambition, but... there just wasn't any point in it.

Also, to impress him, she took to learning random bits of theories ranging from linguistics to glass science, which was rather in keeping with her childish ways.

Now, it seemed, she was talking to John about Russell's Paradox, glancing every so often over to where Sherlock was typing on his laptop with abandon.

John nodded now and again, his attention more on the thrush whose leg his was splinting; the bird looked contented despite its injury.

'...and such barber does not exist.' Molly noticed Mycroft and smiled politely. He smiled back.

'Now... ah, hi, Mike...' John signed for her to offer the thrush some water from the cup. 'Thank you, you really helped.'

'You're welcome.'

'Of course, there are ways around the paradox,' John mused. 'Say, the barber might be a woman*.'

'Please,' Sherlock scoffed from behind his laptop. 'Women do shave. Ask Irene.'

There was a pregnant pause. Molly looked fixedly at the bird, which was drinking water, and John stared at the crown of Sherlock's head.

Sherlock must have sensed it somehow.

'What?' He momentarily looked down to save a file. 'Not good?'

'Bit not good, yes.'

'Well, I'll - I am leaving, anyway.' Molly stood up, gulped and rambled towards the exit.

'Bring her along, will you?' Sherlock was already smiling predatorily at some innocent forum he would defile with his perfectly structured comments. 'She's a marvel at that people stuff.'

'They say she has a fur boa,' Molly supplied.

'Nonsense. I know for a fact that she doesn't.'

'How?' Mycroft asked, weary of being ignored.

'I might have burned it as a biohazard when we had a lecture on infectious disease.'

Molly brightened considerably.

'She will hunt you,' John commented, sparing Molly an apologetic glance.

'I'll escape.'

'She will crash the party.'

'Yes, and about time, too. See you.'

'Sure.'

'Drop by tomorrow. The chick should feel better...'

'Bye.'

Mycroft noticed a razor holder, cracked and duck-taped, glued to the wall behind the microscope (winched to the table after some Unspeakable Things happened to it). The holder now bore one of Sherlock's scalpels - so old and dull that it could not serve as a tool for dissection, it had to be a memento. He made a mental note to ask John for the story later.

'Sherlock,' she said from the doorstep.

'Yes?' Sherlock asked; a reflex answer to John's toe-trodding guidelines.

'I once saw a man beating a dog and... I went up to him and said he should stop.'

He raised his head for a moment; but she was already gone.

* Wikipedia, the article on Russell's paradox.


End file.
